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<\/a>(Photo by Kevin Dietsch \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\nby William Kristol<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the best of times for Elon Musk. It\u2019s not the best of times for many of his fellow Americans.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Tesla announced<\/a> shareholders had approved a plan from its board of directors to make the world\u2019s richest man\u2014currently in possession<\/a> of about $500 billion\u2014richer still. Musk will receive shares worth almost $1 trillion over the next decade if the company achieves various financial and operational goals.<\/p>\n The median Tesla worker earned about $57,000 in 2024, according to a company securities filing. The company announced no incentives package for the workers.<\/p>\n Musk has had a busy year, not confining his attention to Tesla. He had a stint in Donald Trump\u2019s White House, as you might recall, where he spearheaded the administration\u2019s destruction of USAID. Musk boasted<\/a> on February 3 on his social media platform, X, that \u201cwe spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.\u201d Hundreds of thousands of the poor and the sick in Africa have died as a result. One study estimated<\/a> that 14 million people could die because of these cuts should they continue through 2030.<\/p>\n Musk also injected himself into Germany\u2019s national elections, enthusiastically endorsing the neo-Nazi party, the Allianz f\u00fcr Deutschland. His attempt to feed the German pro-liberal democracy and pro-America parties into the wood chipper failed.<\/p>\n This is the man who now stands at the pinnacle of the American system of democratic capitalism, and who is now having bestowed upon him ever greater wealth and rewards.<\/p>\n Others aren\u2019t faring as well.<\/p>\n Yesterday, the Washington Post reported<\/a> on new data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that tracks workplace hiring and firing in the United States. \u201cEmployers,\u201d the newspaper wrote, \u201cannounced more than 153,000 job cuts last month, a 183 percent increase from the month before, marking the worst October for layoffs since 2003.\u201d For 2025 as a whole, U.S. employers have so far announced 1.1 million layoffs\u2014a level of job cuts comparable to those of 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession.<\/p>\n The Post talked with a 52-year-old software developer in Houston, Scott Boggs, who lost his job in late September. \u201cSince then, he\u2019s had a few interviews but says it\u2019s been much harder to find viable openings than the last time he was laid off, about 20 years ago. His most recent interview, on Wednesday morning, was a video call with an AI bot that lasted 12 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n So in Austin, Elon Musk is doing great, riding an AI investment wave to unimaginable wealth. A hundred and fifty miles away, in Houston, Scott Boggs is reduced to pleading for a job with an AI bot.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be a wild-eyed leftist to think all of this has a pre-French Revolution vibe. It feels like a \u201clet them eat cake\u201d moment\u2014and that\u2019s to say nothing about the Trumpist kleptocracy that competes every day for headlines with our Muskian plutocracy.<\/p>\n The Old Regime in France led to the Revolution of 1789. And that revolution in turn quickly produced the Reign of Terror. It was one of the architects of the Terror, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, president of the Paris Commune, who in a speech on October 14, 1793 famously cited the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau: \u201cWhen the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found no evidence that the quotation from Rousseau is correct, any more than that the \u201clet them eat cake\u201d remark ascribed to Marie Antoinette was real. But it\u2019s true in a broader sense that the smug complacency of \u201cQu\u2019ils mangent de la brioche\u201d invited the harsh reaction of \u201cManger les riches.\u201d<\/p>\n The current state of American capitalism isn\u2019t sustainable. It doesn\u2019t deserve to be sustained. And the best way to avoid an American version of \u201ceat the rich\u201d is to fix the current \u201clet them eat cake\u201d distortion of capitalism into which we\u2019ve fallen.<\/p>\n One person who doesn\u2019t begin to understand this is Elon Musk. His solution to income inequality, he said yesterday, was for people to buy humanoid robots\u2014specifically the one he\u2019s developing. \u201cPeople often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care. Well, there\u2019s actually only one way to do that, and that\u2019s with the Optimus robot,\u201d he proclaimed<\/a>, according to the New York Times. How convenient.<\/p>\n One man who does seem to grasp the character of the current moment is Pope Leo XIV. In an interview in September, Pope Leo cited Elon Musk\u2019s pay package in the course of arguing<\/a> that \u201cwe\u2019re in big trouble\u201d when it comes to the \u201ccontinuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive.\u201d More recently, he commented<\/a> on \u201cthe growth of a wealthy elite, living in a bubble of comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people.\u201d We might take guidance from the first American pope.<\/p>\n We might also take guidance from American leaders from the last century, like Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They understood that the best way to avoid an American version of \u201ceat the rich\u201d was to fix the \u201clet them eat cake\u201d distortions of capitalism. We would greatly benefit from successors to the two Roosevelts today.<\/p>\n Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n by Andrew Egger<\/p>\n Poor Jeanine Pirro. Donald Trump\u2019s Fox News-honed U.S. attorney for D.C. wanted so badly to make an example of Sean Dunn, the man who whipped a sub sandwich into a Border Patrol agent\u2019s bulletproof vest\u2014\u201cat point-blank range,\u201d as the government argued in court\u2014back in August.<\/p>\n Dunn was supposed to be the owned lib par excellence, the D.C. Democrat whose scalp they could hold up to the cheering MAGA throng as proof that they\u2019re not gonna get away with it anymore. He had thrown a footlong. They were throwing the law right back.<\/p>\n The government spared no expense in its quest to make an example of Dunn. When they put out a warrant for his arrest, they wouldn\u2019t let him surrender quietly\u2014they sent twenty armed officers to his apartment to arrest him in the dead of night, videographer in tow. The White House posted<\/a> a souped-up sizzle reel of the footage to X with the caption \u201cNighttime Routine: Operation Make D.C. Safe Again.\u201d Pirro herself taped a video<\/a> after the arrest: \u201cThis guy thought it was funny\u2014well, he doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s funny today, because we charged him with a felony,\u201d she beamed. \u201cSo there\u2014stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n But they ran into trouble quick. First, a grand jury declined to sign off<\/a> on Pirro\u2019s desired charge of felony assault. (The decision spawned a thousand indict-a-ham-sandwich jokes that were graver crimes than any offense Dunn committed.) The feds quickly regrouped, charging Dunn with a misdemeanor instead. But alas: no luck there either. Yesterday, after seven hours of deliberation, a D.C. jury acquitted Dunn. He\u2019s a free man again\u2014at least until the next time he bumps into federal agents outside a Subway.<\/p>\n We admit being a hair surprised at the acquittal, to be honest. People have been booked for assaulting officers for less than a hoagie to the chest. But you have to imagine jurors were struck by the incongruity of it all: prosecutors\u2019 breathless invective about Dunn\u2019s diabolical intent to injure one of Our Great Federal Cops on the one hand, that cop\u2019s testimony about how the greatest harm he suffered was mustard on his uniform and some ribbing from his buddies on the other. As NBC\u2019s Ryan J. Reilly noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n Border Patrol Officer Greg Lairmore received two \u201cgag gifts\u201d related to the incident\u2014a plush sandwich and a patch featuring a cartoon of Dunn throwing the sandwich with the words \u201cFelony Footlong\u201d\u2014which the defense team argued showed this was not a serious event in his life.<\/p>\n To convict, the jury would need to have been convinced Dunn intended to inflict \u201cbodily injury\u201d; apparently correctly, they judged that all that had been hurt was the officer\u2019s pride.<\/p>\n And, of course, Pirro\u2019s. The whole thing is an intense embarrassment for the gang of clowns currently trying to run a Scared Straight operation on the entire American left. Oh, you think you\u2019re funny? Let\u2019s see how funny you think you are when you\u2019re IN JAIL. But a jury has spoken: The whole thing, it turns out, is pretty funny after all.<\/p>\n Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n SNAP IN STASIS: The White House is appealing a judge\u2019s order, handed down yesterday in Rhode Island, that it must find money somewhere to fully fund SNAP benefits for November by the end of the week. Judge John McConnell Jr. slapped down the administration\u2019s plan to fund only partial benefits, arguing that this approach would result in insurmountable logistical burdens on the state organizations that process and distribute SNAP benefits. <\/p>\n While Judge McConnell is correct that the partial-payout system was likely to cause major headaches and delays, the White House is arguably entitled to a little frustration here. The shutdown drags on, no money is going into SNAP, and the supplemental fund they were already ordered to tap to keep paying SNAP benefits contains only $5 billion\u2014enough to keep the money moving just for a couple weeks. Nobody wants to see those benefits expire altogether, but there\u2019s only so much money the administration can find through One Weird Trick\u2013type bookkeeping until there\u2019s a breakthrough in the congressional impasse. <\/p>\n But reasonable or not, that frustration seemingly has the White House falling back into bad habits: openly flirting with the idea of defying a court order. \u201cIn the midst of a shutdown, we can\u2019t have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation,\u201d Vice President JD Vance fumed to reporters yesterday. \u201cThe president and the entire administration are working on that, but we\u2019re not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. We\u2019re going to do it according to what we think we have to do to comply with the law.\u201d <\/p>\n I\u2019m doing it because I want to, not because you tell me to! Whatever you say, JD\u2014provided you do actually do it.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n THE STRIKES CONTINUE: Last week, a reporter asked<\/a> Donald Trump whether he would call on Congress to legitimize his attacks on boats off the coast of Venezuela. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going necessarily to ask for a declaration of war,\u201d Trump replied. \u201cI think we\u2019re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We\u2019re going to kill them. They\u2019re going to be, like, dead.\u201d <\/p>\n Yesterday, the Senate said: Okay, sir, sounds good to us. The body voted down a resolution that would have required the White House to get congressional approval for any military action against Venezuela. The vote failed 49\u201351, with two Republicans\u2014Sens. Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski\u2014joining the Democrats who were united in support of the measure.<\/p>\n Some Republicans voted to allow the strikes to continue even as they denounced their use. Sen. Todd Young said<\/a> in a statement that he was satisfied the strikes were legal, but added: \u201cI am troubled by many aspects and assumptions of this operation and believe it is at odds with the majority of Americans who want the U.S. military less entangled in foreign conflicts.\u201d <\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is plainly taking such concerns under advisement. Shortly after the vote, he announced that the government had carried out yet another strike on yet another vessel in the Caribbean. \u201cAs we\u2019ve said before, vessel strikes on narco-terrorists will continue until their the poisoning [sic] of the American people stops,\u201d Hegseth tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n NO GAMBLING IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT: The Supreme Court seemed to turn a frosty eye<\/a> this week toward Donald Trump\u2019s claims of sweeping authority to set tariff rates, with Justice Neil Gorsuch in particular raising questions about the massive assertion of executive power implicit in those claims. \u201cCongress, as a practical matter, can\u2019t get this power back once it\u2019s handed it over to the president,\u201d Gorsuch said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a one-way ratchet toward the gradual-but-continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people\u2019s elected representatives.\u201d <\/p>\n At least one of those elected representatives took issue with that. \u201cI don\u2019t find myself in disagreement with Justice Gorsuch too often, but I think he\u2019s missed the mark on this one,\u201d House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters yesterday, poker face admirably smooth. \u201cIf I felt like the executive branch had overstepped its bounds on trade or on tariffs or something, I would have stepped in.\u201d<\/p>\n Sure, Mike.<\/p>\n This is a speaker who has literally spearheaded strategic House measures to forbid Congress from taking votes related to Trump\u2019s tariffs for months at a time. But we\u2019re sure Johnson will be quick to chastise the president should he ever<\/a> overstep<\/a> Congress\u2019s<\/a> authority<\/a> in any<\/a> other<\/a> domain<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>Jeanine Pirro, laying down the law.<\/p>\n